1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to cellular communication systems and, in particular, to methods for inhibiting and allowing alarm handling in a digital cellular system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The prior art of the present field includes a method for providing an alarm to a manager (i.e., administrator) after recognizing the alarm. However, a method is not disclosed in the prior art to prevent or inhibit an alarm which does not have to be provided to an administrator. Rather, the prior art discloses a function for preventing the digital cellular system from working and for providing alarm data to an upper system, when an alarm has been initiated. However, this function was implemented as a hardware method and not a software method. Further, the prior art does not include a method performed by an upper alarm handling block for handling an alarm which is frequently active due to an inadequate hardware configuration or system instability.
As a result of the above described inconvenience, whenever the notice inhibition occurred through graphic data or a message window, the administrator had to inhibit the corresponding alarm by modifying the program, and then re-compiling the program in order to locate the generated execution file in the base station manager (BSM).
A function disclosed in the prior art and referred to as an inhibit alarm message (INH-ALM-MSG) only inhibits the display to the message window. The display is informed concurrently to the administrator and the statistics storing the graphic data, the audible alarm, the occurrence number of the alarm, and the results of the occurrence of the alarm.
Some of the problems with the prior art methods and systems will now be described. First, when an alarm occurs frequently and is cleared, messages regarding the occurrence and clearing of the alarm are displayed via the message window while an audible alarm continues ringing. This makes it difficult for the administrator to find other problems. Second, whenever the administrator requested that the developer inhibit the corresponding alarm handling, the developer had to modify the program or control the hardware. The frequent modification of the program and the application of various execution files to the system on a case-by-case basis rendered the management of the program a difficult task for the developer. Third, the allowance of an inhibited alarm handling required the same amount of work as the inhibition of the alarm handling, thereby causing severe inconvenience. Fourth, cognizance of the procedure for inhibiting alarm handling was not easily ascertainable by the administrator and the developer. The developer had to manage all the situations which arose on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, the administrator and the developer had to endure the inconvenience and difficulties of managing the system and the program. Fifth, the INH-ALM-MSG only inhibits the simultaneous display of alarm messages to the message window, rather than whole or complete alarm handling. Accordingly, it would be desirable and highly advantageous for a method to be provided that displays alarm handling information in the administrator's command language to enable the administrator and the developer to easily manage the system and the program, respectively.